Two Shawls, a Fall Camping Trip, and the Places We Knit Into Them
We went camping at Lake Powhatan outside Asheville for the girls’ fall break, and we took lots of layers, including two shawls I designed and knitted on earlier adventures. I was glad we brought them, partly because having another layer is always useful when you’re camping in the fall, but also because wearing them again made me think about the places I was when I first made them.
That’s something I love about knitting. I can pick up a finished piece years later and remember what was happening while I worked on it, where we were going, and why I chose those particular colors. A project becomes its own little record of a trip, and then you take it somewhere new and add another memory to it.
This time, I also took lots of pictures. I draped the shawls over our camping chairs and against the trees, photographed the stitches up close, and enjoyed seeing these familiar pieces in a different setting. It made me want to share the patterns again, because they’re both the kind of knitting I like to bring along when we travel.
I love a project that lets me enjoy the scenery and have a conversation while still making something. Both of these were great for car knitting when I was the passenger, and both gave me room to play with colors inspired by places I visited. You can bring your own palette and memories to either one.
Enjoy these two free fall knitting projects
The I’m Going on an Adventure Wrap
The name is fairly accurate. This is a lightweight, lacy wrap designed for that special skein of fingering-weight yarn you’ve been saving, possibly because you love it so much you can’t quite decide what it should become.
The pattern uses approximately 400–430 yards of fingering-weight yarn, with size 5 or 6 circular needles, depending on your preferred fabric. It grows from a small beginning into an asymmetrical triangle, with garter stitch and lace rows you can add as often or as little as you like. A picot bind-off finishes the edge.
I like the flexibility of this one. There’s room to let the yarn lead, enjoy the color changes, and decide how much lace you want as you go. You can also use a second skein if you’d like a larger wrap.
It’s a lovely way to turn a single skein into something you can actually take with you and wear, especially if that yarn already reminds you of a place.
This one was really fun because I designed and knitted it while we were going on a road trip so it was easy to keep knitting and not have to pay too close of attention to it because I really love looking out the window and talking and listening to music. That’s how it got its name. One because I was going on an adventure and two because it’s kind of an adventure to make because you choose when and how often the eyelets happen. It’s also easy to take on an adventure because it’s easy to grab one or two skeins of fingering weight yarn that play well together.
The Easy Fade Wrap
The Easy Fade Wrap is a simple introduction to blending colors with hand-dyed yarn. It uses two or four skeins of fingering-weight speckled yarn, holding two strands together, with size 6 needles or your preferred size.
The color blending comes from gradually changing which strands you’re holding together. You start with two strands of one color, move through a combination of the two colors, and finish with two strands of the next. The garter stitch gives you a lovely surface for watching those colors mingle.
I wanted this pattern to be beautiful and simple enough to take anywhere. For me, the interest is in seeing what the yarn does as the colors meet, which is especially fun when you’ve chosen a palette inspired by somewhere you’ve been.
You don’t have to match a landscape exactly. Sometimes it’s a combination of colors you noticed, or simply something about the place that makes you reach for one skein beside another. The finished wrap becomes your interpretation of it. This one was finished and photographed 5 years ago on our 10 year anniversary trip to the Capital Reef State Park in Utah. I just loved how the colors echoed the cliffs, skies and sage.
A project for wherever you’re going next
Having these shawls with us at Lake Powhatan reminded me how much I enjoy making things that stay part of our everyday lives. I designed them on past trips, wore them on this one, and now they have another place attached to them in my memory.
If you’re choosing knitting for an upcoming trip, or looking for a project for a few quiet evenings at home, both patterns are available on my website. Choose the Adventure Wrap for a single-skein project with a little lace, or the Easy Fade Wrap if you want to play with blending hand-dyed colors.
And if you have a skein tucked away that reminds you of somewhere you loved, this might be a good time to finally knit with it. If you would like to have more hand dyed yarn in your life for just such occasions then please try my Hand Dyed Yarn Subscription. Monthly featuring yarn and dye work from USA boutique businesses and artisans. Check out the banner at the top of the page to save 20%
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Here it is the yarn subscription we’ve been dreaming up and putting together for what seems like forever! I’ve been wanting to make a sister yarn subscription to go with our super popular braid club. So it has all of the same elements that has made our hand dyed braid club such a hit
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